Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies | Page 6

you're not badly hurt, are you?"
"Ha--hum! I dunno," stuttered the miller, and sat up. He rubbed his
forehead and brought his hand, with a little blood upon it, back to the
level of his eyes. "I vum!" he ejaculated, with more interest than before.
"I must ha' cracked my head some. Why was it I didn't drown?"
"This little missy, here," said the black-eyed youth, quickly. "She saved
you, Mister. She held your head above water till I come."
"Why--why----Niece Ruth! you did that?"
"Oh, it was nothing, Uncle Jabez! I am so glad you are not hurt worse.
This boy really saved you. He brought you ashore."

"Who be ye, young man?" asked the miller. "I'm obleeged to ye--if
what my niece says is true."
"Oh, I am named Roberto. You need not to thank--no!" exclaimed the
stranger, suddenly getting up and looking all about.
"But it was very brave of him," declared Ruth, and she seized the boy's
hand. "I--I am so glad you were near."
"Here's Tim and Joe Bascom coming," said Uncle Jabez, who was
facing the store.
Instantly Roberto, as he called himself, jerked his hand from Ruth's
grasp. He had seen the men coming, too, and without a word he turned
and fled back into the woods.
"Why--why----" began Ruth, in utter surprise.
"What's the matter with that feller?" demanded Uncle Jabez, just as the
storekeeper and Farmer Bascom arrived.
"I seen the feller, Jabe," said the latter, eagerly. "He's one o' them
blamed Gypsies. I run him out o' my orchard only yisterday."
CHAPTER III
EVENING AT THE RED MILL
About this time Uncle Jabez began to wake up to the fact that his boat
and the flour were gone.
"It's a dumbed shame, Jabez! an' I needed that flour like tunket," said
Timothy Lakeby, the storekeeper.
"Huh!" grunted the miller. "'Tain't nothin' out o' your pocket, Tim."
"But my customers air wantin' it."
"You lemme hev your boat, an' a boy to bring it back, an' we'll go right

hum an' load ye up some more flour," groaned the miller. "That dratted
Ben will be back by thet time, I fancy. Ef he'd been ter the mill I
wouldn't hev been dependent upon my niece ter help row that old boat."
"Too heavy for her--too heavy for her, Jabe," declared Joe Bascom.
"Huh! is thet so?" snapped the miller. He could grumble to Ruth
himself, but he would not stand for any other person's criticism of her.
"Lemme tell ye, she worked her passage all right. An' I vum! I b'lieve
thet 'twas me, myself, thet run the old tub on the rock."
"Aside from the flour, Jabez," said the storekeeper, "'tain't much of a
loss. But you an' Ruthie might ha' both been drowned."
"I would, if it hadn't been for her," declared the miller, with more
enthusiasm than he usually showed. "She held my head up when I was
knocked out--kinder. Ye see this cut in my head?"
"Ye got out of it lucky arter all, then," said Bascom.
"Ya-as," drawled the miller. "But I ain't feelin' so pert erbout losin' thet
boat an' the flour."
"But see how much worse it might have been, Uncle," suggested Ruth,
timidly. "If it hadn't been for that boy----"
"What did he say his name was?" interrupted Timothy.
"Roberto."
"Yah!" said Bascom. "Thet's a Gypsy name, all right! I'd like ter got
holt on him."
"I wish I could have thanked him," sighed Ruth.
"If you see him ag'in, Joe," said the miller, "don't you bother about a
peck o' summer apples. I'll pay for them," he added, with a sudden
burst of generosity. "Of course--in trade," he added.

He could move about now, and the gash in his head had ceased
bleeding. It was a warm evening, and neither Ruth nor her uncle were
likely to take cold from their ducking. But her clothing clung to her in
an uncomfortable manner, and the girl was anxious to get back to the
mill.
Timothy Lakeby routed out a clerk and sent him with them in the
lighter boat that was moored at the store landing. Ruth begged to pull
an oar again, and her uncle did not forbid her. Perhaps he still felt a
little weak and dazed.
He kept speaking of Roberto, the Gypsy boy. "Strong as an ox, that
feller," he said. "Wisht I had a man like him at the mill. Ben ain't wuth
his salt."
"Oh, I'm sure, Uncle Jabez, Ben is very faithful and good," urged Ruth.
"Wal, a feller that could carry me like that young man done--he's jest
another Sandow, he is," said Uncle Jabez.
They easily got across the river in the storekeeper's lighter boat, and
Ruth displayed her oarsmanship to better advantage, for the oars were